“On The Strings of Hades Alba Ecstasy goes in those years of Trancefer to Audentity, a land that very few musicians have visited”
1 The Great Transition (LIVE) 12:36 2 The Strings of Hades 41:15 Alba Ecstasy Music
(DDL 53:51) (V.F.) (Ambient & Industrial music)
I forgot to write about this Alba Ecstasy's album which was nominated at the Schallwelle Electronic Music Award in 2015. And that's where one observes that the tastes are different and that the work of Mihail Adrian Simion is especially recognized by its peers and the industry. Released in February 2015, THE STRINGS OF HADES has been reissued, still as a download, with a new remix in March of this year. The particularity of this album is The Great Transition which was played and recorded live in the studio of Alba Ecstasy. Divided into two segments, the structure begins by a hesitant rhythm like a cat playing lazily with his mouse. If this rhythm is relatively common in EM, it's this superb strident synth solo that floods our ears for a good 5 minutes which holds the most attention. Always influenced by the Klaus Schulze's School, the Romanian synthesist adds drum effects around the 6th minute, bringing a touch of rock and dance to a solid track that melts into a very ambiospheric finale where ambient-generating engines roar in an industrial setting. However, the pièce de résistance of this album is its long sonic river quiet, dark and penetrating not to say intriguing. Sonic graffiti and reverberation effects soaked of white noise stagnate an introduction that is also filled with industrial lamentations. A sequencer awakens around the 8th minute by making frolic some bass sequences which jump in these emanations sound. The movement structures an ambient and hypnotic rhythm with some nuances in the oscillations, joining a cello whose metallic strings melt its harmonies with the industrial rumblings. Alba Ecstasy immerses his listeners in the wonderful iconoclastic universe of the Trancefer to Audentity years from Klaus Schulze. A complex and destabilizing universe that very few musicians, I do not know any if not Schulze himself, have exploited over the years and that Mihail Adrian Simion is spraying of some very nice solos from a chimerical cello. Audacious and fascinating, The Strings of Hades continues its long road in the industrial vapors and on this movement of hypnotic sequences well anchored on the modulations of bass sequences which vanish at the door of 20 minutes. The movement then becomes ambient and disordered with the lamentations of machineries dying in an area of desolation. Divided between these mechanic effects under torture and the flight-off of musical cellos, the ambiences of this very long title sink into nothingness. The sequencer emerges again around the 30th minute, adding for a little less than 240 seconds a kind of stationary rhythm with reverberant oscillations which bend beneath the weight of the ambiances in a finale where the rumblings are trying to annihilate a last volley of cellos. As it's often the case, albums and movies nominated are not for a large audience. THE STRINGS OF HADES confirms this reality with an album whose creativity is unequivocal. And since creativity doesn't go hand in hand with a commercial approach, this album is for those who have loved the molten metal ambiances that have been hammering cello strings in the years Dig It to Dziekuje Poland by Klaus Schulze. Sylvain Lupari (July 6th, 2018) ***½**
Available on Alba Ecstasy's Bandcamp